Last week, I thought of this old thread, when two nights in a row I had composer dreams. And I usually don't even remember my dreams.

In the first one, it took me back in the past to the Times Square area of New York City, back when I had my usual haunts of looking for collectibles. Some of these were collector gathering spots, somewhat like Footlight Records became years later. But the timing of this dream was in the LP era, before CDs. So, a youthful I wandered into the store, looking for John, who worked there. John was the only collector I knew who had the LP of Alex North's AMERICAN ROAD and the complete set of the CBS EZ Cue LPs and Reel-To_Reel tapes. He was obscured in the middle of a small gathering of the usual suspects. When some of the bodies parted, there was Jerry Goldsmith, smiling and chatting and signing LPs. There I was, with nothing for him to sign. I think that I tried to find a Goldsmith LP for him to sign, but they were all sold out!! So I would up talking with him for what seemed like quite a while. I must say that , instead of being expectedly tongue-tied in awe, I surprised myself in the interesting conversation that I generated. Then I woke up to my alarm clock and the record store dissolved into the daylight.

In the second one, for some reason, John Williams had impulsively just popped over to my house for a friendly chat. How in blazes he knew who I was or where I lived didn't come to light. But I surely welcomed him in and we took a look at my collection, he signed a few LPs, and we chatted for quite a while, most of which I can't recall, but it was lightweight stuff. One thing I do recall: I asked him if someday he could, as a lighthearted gesture to his fans, include a suite with the End Credits and some of the orchestral cues from HEARTBEEPS in one of his concerts. Maybe as an encore. He could humorously label it "A Suite From My Biggest Flop." This remains a dream for me. There are a lot of collectors who don't like this score much, but I do. He said he would think about it, but that he didn't think anyone would remember the film. After a while, the conversation came to it's natural end and he had to take his leave. And that was it and we went to fade out.

You'd think that someone my age would have dreams of more consequence and find world peace or cure cancer or something. But nooo...Jerry Goldsmith and John Williams lurk there in the dream world, waiting....... I'm going to have to cheat on them with Michael Giacchino or Alexandre Desplat or somebody.

Now I only remember fragments of the Williams thread I talked about earlier.

I was visiting the Berkshire mountains or something, although Tanglewood didn't enter my mind. I've never been there, but it was an awesome site as only your mind can create -- lush fields and majestic mountains towering on each side, shrewn in fog. At some cottage or house, Williams and his crew were preparing for a concert in a few days. I wanted an interview, but his assistant Jamie Richardson came in the way all the time (probably a reference to Richardson's REAL refusal to get me an interview with Williams in LA last year). This annoyed me, and Williams caught my calm, but firm reaction. He said he wanted me as another assistant of his, and Richardson had to grudgingly accept it.

My first task was to set up a special dining place by the concert hall further down the road -- the best spot (maybe for Williams' friends?). "Where is it?", I said. "Oh you'll see it, it's just over a slope and with the red sunshades", Richardson told me. So I went ahead, carrying lots of stuff, but of course I couldn't find it. Then I saw the concert venue in the middle of nowhere. The stage was shaped like a giant, brown church organ, really, and the spectator section consisted of various round, clay-like slopes with small spots of tables and sunshades inbetween. I tried to find the one in the middle with the best possible view.

Don't remember much else of the action here, only that IMMEDIATELY next to the stage was this incredible tall mountain wall that just disappeared in the fog as it went up -- a bit like the wall in GAME OF THRONES.

Anyways, I went back to the cottage, which was now transformed to a Vietnamese fishing village in sunset, and as I approached, I welcomed a few fishermen in the their canoes as they arrived. They were FSM members. I can only remember Mark Ford -- who for some reason didn't recognize me after we had met in LA last year -- but there were several others too.

Here's an odd one. By the way, I dreamt this years ago but just never bothered to mention it here before. I imagine that many of us "oldies" grew up watching films on TV, and with no idea as to who the score was by (no reference books, never mind the Internet!), so we'd be shouting out "Bernard Herrmann!! Miklós Rózsa!!! Alfred Newman!!!!" - and were very smugly satisfied in front of our parents when the guesses were correct, as they often were.

Anyway, in my dream I was watching the start of a film on TV, and it was so evidently Jerry Goldsmith (or someone - I can't remember who it was really like, but that's irrelevant) that I shouted out "Jerry Goldsmith!!!!" Imagine my shame when the credit came up "Music by Titian Tinc".

Now, I have NO IDEA where the name Titian Tinc came from. He doesn't even exist.

Now, I have NO IDEA where the name Titian Tinc came from. He doesn't even exist.

This looks like an authentic one, with substance. (I'll break my usual rule of declining to comment on this type of thread for this one).

'Titian tincture' is presumably what you're getting at (I see you're in Spain, so you need to consult the Spanish language for any word that is similar first, mind you). You need to look at his colourings in his paintings and see what they suggest.

But the main trick is the term 'tincture' which, apart from a colour, is an alchemical term for a sort of solution. That relates to a certain stage in a transformation cycle. The 'tincture' in alchemy is a colouring that appears in the 'prima materia'. Borrow Carl Jung's 'Psychology and Alchemy' and look up 'tincture' in the index, it's a significant term, and various 'tinctures' represent the transformation process along the way. If Titian's colour to you is predominantly red for instance it may indicate the 'sunrise', or 'rubedo', a new beginning, after a crappy or trying procedure.

Appreciation of the film composers' styles seems to be a way into creative awareness for you anyhow. A way into other things. For some it's only a trap, a dead-end.

I was working for John Williams, who was a really nice guy, and he asked me to make hotel reservations for him for his next concert. He also asked me to make SURE that there was roast beef at the reception for him at his hotel.

Because he was a really nice guy, I made sure PERSONALLY to mail a roast beef that I had made myself to his hotel room, well in advance of the reception.